


love songs for the genuinely cunning

by everybodylies



Category: Luther (TV), Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Crossover, F/M, post series 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-11
Updated: 2013-11-11
Packaged: 2018-01-01 03:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodylies/pseuds/everybodylies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, How John Luther became Stacker Pentecost</p>
            </blockquote>





	love songs for the genuinely cunning

He strolls into their hotel room, falls into one of the chairs with a sigh, and tosses the passport into Alice's waiting hands.

"Say goodbye to the 'people's army,' Alice."

She opens it, and her mouth twitches, the beginnings of a smile. "This is the name you've chosen. Really?"

He turns his hands palm up, his face a mask of innocence. "What? What's wrong with it?"

"Pentecost?"

"Ah, yes, that would be the one that comes after Easter."

She's smiling now. "So. We have Stacker, as in 'one who stacks,' presumably, and Pentecost, as in 'the Christian festival celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit.' Whatever could it mean?"

"Nothing," he says, peaceful. "Absolutely nothing."

* * *

They're sitting on Stinson Beach when the first Kaiju attacks, far away enough that they aren't in any real danger, but close enough that Alice catches a glimpse of the behemoth rising from the ocean and becomes utterly and irrevocably fascinated.

"I never pegged you for an alien enthusiast, Alice," he remarks, smirking, as she darts around their rented cabin, quickly packing up their things.

She stops in front of him for a moment to reply, her toothbrush in one hand, his slippers in the other.

"Yes, _aliens_ , John," she says, eyes alight. "Aliens. Surely you have not forgotten my former career as an astrophysicist. I watched stars die in the Andromeda Galaxy 2.5 million light years away, I located black holes in Bode's Galaxy 12 million light years away, and never, not once, did I, nor any other scientist for that matter, observe in that dark void anything close to resembling even a remnant of life."

She grins, and he realizes that the last time he'd seen her this alive was back when they started this whole adventure of theirs three months ago.

"And yet, _here it is_. Here is alien life. We searched for it for years and years, but _it_ came to _us_ , and it came from beneath our own oceans.

"And the first thing it does, the absolute _first_ thing it does, John, is not to greet us or negotiate with us, or even to tell us to back off. No, the first thing it does… is destroy."

She reaches for him, caresses his face almost absentmindedly.

"I may have to update my definition of pure evil," she murmurs before returning to her frantic packing.

* * *

The monster's still going, still dangerous, now making its way through the eastern edge of San Francisco, but he lets Alice drag him along in their little minivan, the same way he let her drag him to Juneau the week before, and to Mount Kilimanjaro the week before that, and to Malta the week before that…

He hasn't had many ideas of what to do, ever since he left London and the job behind. He used to have duty directing him, but now he's just… aimless. Indifferent.

Of course, it's only been three months. Perhaps it will come with time.

But for now, he lets Alice make the decisions. And the decision she makes this time is this: they drive in the wake of the Kaiju as it stomps its way across California (luckily, it had left the highway intact) dodging rubble, cracked roads, and whistle-blowing policemen, screaming things like, "Are you crazy?"

When the Kaiju finally collapses, dead, in Oakland, the Feds try to rope the whole thing off. But it's hard to keep an eight-hundred foot long monster off limits, and Alice easily sneaks them past the three levels of security.

The Kaiju had died with its huge, black eyes wide open, and he watches as Alice just stands there and stares and stares and stares.

* * *

It wasn't like it had been a mistake. He'd had fun with Alice those three months. She'd enjoyed them, too.

But it wasn't the same, was it? He remembers the conversations they'd had about murders and the universe, hushed and intense in the backs of coffee shops, loud and contradictory in her lab, remembers the forbidden smiles they'd shared, ski masks over their faces, a tire iron in his hand, and he realizes that, yes, it was close, but, no, it wasn't the same.

* * *

Ten months and two attacks later, Alice moves them to Osaka, where they're establishing an international Kaiju research base—

"—only if you wanted that, as well. Of course."

He sighs, but he doesn't say no.

"I thought I was done, Alice. I thought we walked away. I thought I was done being John Luther."

"Yes, that's what you thought," Alice says fondly, her hand on his chest. "And I'll admit, that's what I thought for a while, as well. But you are who you are. And I am who I am. And you need someone to help, someone to save. Otherwise you just get… sad and dull. You know I love you John, but you are not the man you were. And what I need is something to do. My brain requires activity, stimulation."

He smiles.

"Well?" she asks.

"Well, I suppose we're off to Osaka, then."

* * *

She gets him a job in the defense department. He designs emergency protocols for different cities, organizes the construction of fall out shelters, distributes weapons designed specifically for use against the Kaiju.

He has… a purpose now. Alice was right; he feels better, more focused.

Alice, too, he can tell. She's as happy as a clam, hidden away in some laboratory buried in Kaiju guts and portal calculations. He can't remember the last time she committed a murder.

* * *

He hears through the grapevine about something called the Jaeger program. Some scientist is designing giant robots. And he likes that idea. Taking charge, fighting back. He likes the sound of less destruction and lower death tolls.

Unfortunately, the program is based in Alaska, and he can't imagine Alice has much interest in giant robots punching monsters, so he stays put.

But, as it turns out, the Jaeger program is in his future, whether he wants it to be or not.

He, Alice, and several other important employees sit in front of a wall of screens, as they listen to an old man give an update, eyes squinting through thick glasses.

"… regrettably, it seems as though the Jaeger program has failed. The Jaegers are fully functional, but the process of piloting one creates an excess of neural stress. A fatal excess. Until this problem is solved, nothing further can be done."

The president of United States frowns deeply. "We sunk a lot of money into the Jaegers, Dr. Lee."

"Sorry, sir."

"I suppose the next step is obvious."

John realizes with a start that the voice who had just spoken came from beside him.

The president stares at the screen. "And who would you be?"

"My name is Dr. Alice Morgan, Mr. President. "

She had never changed her name like he had. It was the inner narcissist. God forbid she make a famous discovery and publish something under the wrong name.

Besides, with the world seemingly ending, was anyone really going to take the time to hunt her down?

"Well, Dr. Morgan?" says the president. "What is this 'obvious' step?"

"Two pilots," Alice says simply. "To share the neural load. Each pilot would act as one hemisphere of a brain, control one side of the robot. Their brains would have to be linked, of course, to ensure cooperative piloting."

Dr. Lee narrows his eyes. "That sounds… dangerous."

"Naturally," says Alice without losing a beat. "Which is why Jo— apologies— _Stacker_ and I, will be the first to test it."

He loves that, loves the way she still stumbles over his name after all this time because he'll always be John Luther to her. He loves it so much that he doesn't realize what she actually said until they're on the way back to their apartment.

"Wait, _what_ are we doing?"

She turns to him, raises an eyebrow. "Haven't you always wanted to see inside my head, John?"

* * *

"I thought you were an astrophysicist," he says, as she attaches electrodes to his head.

"I have many talents," she replies with a smile. She then sits down in the chair next to his and allows another scientist to place the electrodes on her head. "You aren't nervous, are you?"

"No," he says, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Just remind me what we're doing, please."

"Very well. We are about to enter each other's minds. You will be able to relive my memories in extreme detail, as well as your own. I will be able to do the same. However, as fun as it may be to live each other's lives, we must not get lost in the past. The whole purpose of this 'neural handshake' is so that we may pilot a Jaeger. Consequently, once we enter each other's minds, we must find our way back to reality."

He reaches over, rests his hand on her forearm.

"Ready?" she asks.

He looks at her. Clearly, she's excited to see what John Luther really thinks, how his mind really works.

Him? He just really doesn't want his brain to start leaking out of his nose. And perhaps, he's a little interested as well.

"Ready."

Everything goes silent. He opens his eyes to find himself back in uni, a beer in his hand, music pumping in the speakers.

"John?" Alice's voice is like an echo of an echo. He tries to turn around, look for her, but the memory holds him fast.

His eyes scan the room, and, just as they did twenty years ago, they land on a beautiful woman, with a warm smile and intelligent eyes, and he feels the absolute wonder run through his body. It hadn't been love at first sight, but it had been close. In the back of his mind, it occurs to him that Alice must be experiencing this, too.

The woman looks back at him, walks over.

"John, isn't it? I recognize you from one of my classes. I'm Zoe."

He'd loved the way she wasn't scared of him, of his tall, burly stature, his confident smile. And he'd known, right then and there, that she was something spec—

"John. John!"

He loses focus for a second, and now he's running. Sprinting. Down the street, to the house on the left.

He catches a glimpse of red hair in the corner of his eye. Alice is still with him, but like before, the memory won't let him go.

He leans back and kicks the door in… and stops. Where to even start looking? Unwanted thoughts start to crowd his mind, and he can't focus. He thinks of Henry Madsen, about what he'll do to the man when he finally catches him. He thinks of the girl, probably in the process of suffocating at this very moment.

Skip ahead. Two hours, in the blink of an eye. They find the box in the basement. One of the officers hammers the lock off, and John pulls away the airtight cover—

When he sees what's inside… he feels something so dark and absolutely horrible in his chest, even worse than crushing despair. It's the realization that this is the worst moment of his life. It's the realization that he might never, ever come back from this.

He hears a gasp from behind him.

The scene changes.

He's outside this quaint, country cottage he's seen once before, but there are no sirens or police tape, and he knows this is not his memory.

A yellow school bus pulls up, and it's not hard to recognize an adolescent Alice descending the stairs, her pale, lanky body, her devilish eyebrows. A dog runs up to her, wagging its tail, and she pets it, once, twice, uncaring, before walking on.

He opens his mouth, then pauses and says nothing. To be honest, he's curious, and he follows her wordlessly into the house.

He hears the muffled sounds at the same time she does: the grunting, the moaning. Obvious to an adult, innocuous to a child, and to Alice, it seems, intriguing. He follows her as she pads through the hallway, silent and professional. The door is slightly ajar, and they both peer through. He recognizes the man easily enough, even though he'd had a bullet through the brain the last time he saw him. The woman, however, not so much.

She stares, stands there, for a disturbingly long time. Does she care? There is no anger. She simply stands, and she feels, he feels nothing, just cold, cold, numbing cold, in the middle of her chest, his chest. (He thinks of the man's blood on the wall, of gun parts shoved arm deep into the corpse of a dog, and wonders, what else?)

Finally, she moves (thankfully, because he was not enjoying the sight), and he watches as she stops by the kitchen on her way out to the backyard, picks up a knife, strolls out into the forest behind the house.

She walks and walks, then finds a squirrel in one of her traps, and she takes it and bashes its skull in with a rock. She cuts through the skin, the muscle, into the squelching red viscera, and she cuts and cuts, and takes notes on a little notebook she pulls out of her pocket, and he watches, and he feels nothing but endless, endless cold, and she feels, and he shivers.

He sits with her for a while. Eventually, he says, "Alice?" Her hands dripping red, she stops, but doesn't look up. He looks up, only to find himself seated in a hotel restaurant.

She's sitting at the bar, one leg crossed seductively over the other. A man sits next to her, talking excitedly with large gestures, and he recognizes the expression on her face, the one she makes when she's utterly, dangerously bored, and he can't help but laugh.

"Let me stop you right there," she interrupts finally. "I only responded to your initial inquiry of "How are you?" out some sort of common courtesy. Now, of course, I realize that was a mistake.”

“Come on, sweetheart, don’t be like that. Why don’t you and me go back to my room—“

“Why don’t we go back to my room?” Alice asks, grin impossibly wide, and eyes venomous. The man brightens up before Alice continues and dashes all his hopes. “I could show you my knife collection. Would you like me to describe the way I’ll sever your jugular with my scalpel? The way I’ll cut off your limbs with my butcher’s knife? Or how about the way I’ll dig out your eyes—”

In the man’s attempt to escape, he falls face-first off the barstool before managing to sprint out of the room. Satisfied, Alice watches as the man retreats, but the amusement fades soon enough, and after a minute, she’s back to morosely stirring her drink in solitude.

She feels, he feels cold, the same penetrating cold, and he thinks, _Has she spent her entire life like this?_ She looks so pathetically bored, and he decides he'll fix this.

He walks up, sits in the recently vacated seat, and watches as her eyes struggle to focus on him. "I've been looking for you," he says.

She gets her pupils under control, and then she gasps. "And I've been waiting for you,” she says softly.

He holds out his palm, and she takes it.

They're on the bridge. _The_ bridge.

Her pulse thrums under his fingers, her body warm under his.

She breathes. "Do you remember this?" she asks.

And it's a rhetorical question because how could he not? He remembers his fingertips tingling as he held her throat, he remembers the thrill of the chase, the thrill of the forbidden. And now he can see through her eyes, remember how the world opened up, the way the sun shone so brightly for her that day, the way the cold wind whipped at her skin but only warmed her on the inside, thawed her out.

"Of course I do. It was back when I owned this coat. I miss it. You made me throw it away."

She laughs and cups his face.

"There's work to be done," he says.

"There is," she agrees.

He looks around, at the memory. "How do we get out?"

"Open your eyes. On the count of three. One, two,—"

It feels like it's been years since he sat down in this cramped little room filled with wires. He looks at his hand, flexes it, then looks beside him, to Alice. She looks at him, tears glistening in her eyes, a smile growing on her face.

"What?" he asks.

"You lied," she says, grinning. "You _were_ nervous."

Alice's mind comes to him, so fast, so easy.

"So were you," he replies, and she laughs.

* * *

Over the course of the next few days, the clinic receives eight more patients, and they realize that not just any two people can drift together. There has to be some sort of bond between the two, a special kind of trust.

Which is why, when there's a category two Kaiju heading for the Russian coast, Lieutenant Melekhov, eyes wide with panic, turns to them, currently the only two people in existence capable of piloting a Jaeger, and says, "Will you go?"

John looks to his right, where Alice is smack-dab in the middle of transferring Kaiju cells from one petri dish to another. She lifts her head up, looks at him, pauses for a moment, then smiles brilliantly.

"Of course," she says.

Their fighting techniques are so different — his: using strength and dirty hits to overpower opponents and hers: creeping up from behind and sticking knives in ears — that he's sure the whole thing will be a mess.

But it isn't.

There is a sort of grace in the Jaeger’s movements, a lightness in its steps, that he knows comes from Alice. Yet, the power behind its punches and kicks is all him. Linked by the neural handshake, they pummel Spinejackal, targeting all the cracks in its armor, kicking him away from the cities, deep into the Russian forests.

After the Kaiju collapses for the last time, they make their way back to Osaka and are met by cheering scientists and popped champagne in the Jaeger control room. He shakes a lot of hands, and even Alice doesn’t seem to mind the party. She smiles, says “You’re welcome,” to all the thanks that come her way.

They’re soon found by Dr. Lee, who pulls them off to the side.

“You did a great job out there. I know this was an emergency, a one time thing, that we’re trying to get legitimately trained pilots, that you guys have jobs and lives, but … ” The trio look out the window at the behemoth standing outside, slightly beat up, but still standing strong nonetheless.

"She's yours," he says. “If you want."

He freezes, mouth open, not knowing what to say. Alice answers for him,

“Yes, we’ll take her, won’t we, Stacker?”

He turns to look at her, stammers, “What? Alice, no, wait—”

“I’ll give you two a moment, shall I?” Dr. Lee asks, patting them both on their shoulders and walking back into the party.

Alice’s eyes twinkle in amusement. “That is what you want, John, is it not? Or have I vastly misinterpreted your character all these years?”

“Yes, Alice, it is what I want, but it’s not what you want.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. I know you’d rather spend your time in the laboratory than outside, punching Kaiju, for the good of the people. I was in your mind when we were up in that Jaeger. We looked down at all the people running away and all you saw were ants. You didn’t care.”

“I care.”

“You care about me,” he corrects.

“And you care about ants.”

He sighs. “Look, Alice, I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to do just because of me.”

Alice stops, and the look in her eye is almost menacing. He remembers back when he used to be afraid of her, and he realizes that, no, it had never really stopped, just faded away into the background. Now, his skin tingling, it comes back full force.

"Please, John,” she says, enunciating perfectly, “don't think, for one minute, that you could ever, in your wildest dreams, make me do something I didn't want to do."

He stares at her, then laughs, shaking his head. “Alright, then, Alice. As you wish.” He waves to Dr. Lee, who walks over.

“We’ll take her,” John affirms.

Dr. Lee claps his hands gleefully, and grins. “Excellent! Congratulations on being the proud new owners of Jaeger Number One.” He grimaces. “Which, now that I say that, sounds horrible. She'll need a new name.”

“Leave that to us,” Alice says.

* * *

Alice is tied up late at the lab with some research, so he walks home alone, taking the scenic route and smelling the cherry blossoms. When he reaches the apartment, it's obvious the door has been broken into, but he's curious as to who would be so brave, or more likely, so stupid as to mess with the famed pilots of Neutron Ripley, so he simply walks in. He flicks on the light switch to find a familiar face sitting in his living room.

"DCI Gray," he says.

"It's Detective Superintendent now," she says, her eyes as hard as always. "Thanks to the death of DSU Stark, the last one you caused before you skipped town."

Everything comes rushing back from all those months ago. He remembers being so tired of this bullshit, and now he's tired again, tired of constantly trying to convince Erin of things she will never believe, so much so that he begins to doubt himself. He rubs a hand over his face and sighs, but doesn't sit down.

"What do you want?"

"You really should know better than to taunt me like this, Luther. You know what you're doing right now won't stop me. I don't care if you're 'saving lives,' I'll still come after you."

"Taunting? What are you talking—"

"Your face! It's everywhere, all over the papers. And hers, too. And she didn't even change her bloody name." She shakes her head, breathes shallowly. "When you disappeared… I was ready to let you go. I felt bad, about Justin, and about everything that happened. And then you started showing up in the news. And she didn't even change her name! Like you were rubbing it in my face. Like you _wanted_ me to come find you."

He sighs again. "Look, about Alice, she's… well, complicated. It wasn't about you. She's just got… a bit of an ego."

"And the worst part was that you were a hero again," she continues, like he'd never even spoken. "Like London, but even more. People like you, they do just enough good that they think they're on the right side. Just enough. But I've seen the aftermath. And it's people like Justin Ripley who feel the consequences. People like Zoe Luther. Ian Reed."

"I'll tell you the truth, then," he bursts out, before she can continue. "Alright? That's what you want, isn't it? I'll tell you everything."

"Like I'd believe anything you said," she scoffs.

"I'll tell you about Henry Madsen." That gets her attention. "I'll tell you about how I let him fall."

Her face softens for a fraction of a second, then pulls itself back together. "I'm listening."

He sits down, across from her, and begins to talk.

One hour later, he finishes his story. Wordlessly, Erin stands up, walks to him, slaps him hard on the face, just once, and then walks out the door. He never sees her again.

Alice grins when he tells her about the encounter over dinner.

"Shame you told her the truth. I was considering a plan, where we would tell her the truth, but with Zoe cleverly edited out of the story, and then we would hack into the computer records and erase her presence from the files, as if she never existed. DSU Gray would begin to think she was going insane."

He smiles halfheartedly. "She's got a good heart. I hope the best for her."

* * *

The day Stacker Pentecost becomes one of the few people in the world who has singlehandedly piloted a Jaeger is also the day Alice Morgan dies.

The battle begins easily enough, but they soon realize Onibaba is different. It’s too mild, too defensive. It only attacks them in retaliation, not outright. They pick it up, throw it into the ocean, but its hard shell protects it, and it simply scuttles back onto land, destroying more.

They pummel it for an hour, making no progress, and he begins to get a bad feeling. He turns to his side.

“Alice? I think we should try—”

It leaps, slams Neutron Ripley to the ground so hard that he feels like his soul has been pushed out of his body. The lights go out, electricity disconnected. The harness refuses to open, and he is trapped in place.

“Alice?” he screams.

“I’m alright,” she shouts back, breathing heavily. Somehow, she manages to remove herself from her harness, and he watches as she makes her way towards him.

“It’s not looking good for us, Alice,” he says.

She bends down and cups his cheek. “Nonsense. I have a plan, as I always do. Anyway, look, the Kaiju has left us alone. It must believe we are dead.”

“I bet you wish you’d said no to all this when I gave you the chance.”

She laughs, tinged with sadness. “Well, I couldn’t let you drift with anyone else other than me, could I? Besides, I’m perfectly happy.”

“Happy?” he asks skeptically. “You’re happy? Right now, At this very moment?”

“I am. And I have been. And so have you. I regret nothing.”

He frowns. “This sounds an awful lot like a goodbye, Alice.”

She doesn’t answer, merely looks out the window. He follows her gaze to Onibaba, who has turned around and is now heading right for them.

She stands up and walks over to the cabinet where the flare guns are kept.

“Alice? Alice!”

He hears her load the gun, cock it.

“Alice! Don’t do this!”

She walks back to him, and he strains, but he can’t move at all.

“It’ll kill us both if I don’t.”

“It won’t. It doesn’t even know we’re in here. You don’t need to do this!”

Alice sighs, pats him on the chest, and ignores him. Instead, she says, “I will repeat this because I fear you have not heard it: I do not regret anything. I have made my choices, and given the opportunity to do it all again, I would do exactly the same.”

“You’re a selfish narcissist, Alice,” he blurts out. It’s a low blow, but what else is there? “Why sacrifice yourself? Your intelligence, your beauty? It’s not worth it.”

She smiles at him. Onibaba continues closer, and the vibrations shake a tear loose from her eye. “Love is supposed to dignify us, exalt us, John. And, oh, I do believe it has.” She bends down to press a kiss to his cheek.

“Goodbye, John.”

“Alice. Come back. Alice!”

He’s still screaming when she pops the escape hatch and walks out to confront a 60 meter tall Kaiju with a flare gun. He’s still screaming when she shoots and the flare explodes in Onibaba’s eye. He’s still screaming when Onibaba throws a building on her and she disappears from view.

He screams and screams, and he’s not even screaming words anymore, but he doesn’t feel like he’ll ever be able to stop.

Finally, the lights flicker back on, and Dr. Lee’s voice comes from the radio. “We’ve restarted the system, you’ll be able to move momentarily—Oh, lord, where’s Alice?”

“Transfer control of the Jaeger to me,” he growls.

“Stacker? But—where’s Alice?”

“Transfer control!”

“But—you can’t—solo? No way.”

“Do it!”

“… Okay.”

The warning bells come on, and “Error: neural handshake not complete” rings in his ears, as he pulls himself up. His brain feels like it’s being torn in two, but it’s a welcome distraction from the unfathomable emptiness he was feeling before.

Everything passes in a rage-filled blur. When he actually manages to focus his vision, Onibaba is dead on the ground, and most of Tokyo has been completely leveled. He catches a glimpse of a young girl running throughout the wreckage and walks toward her. His Jaeger lies down, (collapses, really), and he pulls himself out of the harness. He feels alright, surprisingly, but he suspects that the aftereffects of his solo will become known to him in time.

Numbly, he crawls out of the Jaeger to find the young girl staring up at him in relief. And he thinks incredulously at himself, why did he walk over here? He just lost Alice. Right now, he does not have the emotional strength, the patience, the composure to deal with this girl, to comfort her the way she should be comforted.

Yet he does. Because he is John Luther, and even at his worst moments, when world is dark and the storm clouds are moving in, he cannot say no.

And anyway, this girl has lost every single person she has ever cared about. He figures he knows what that feels like.

He walks to her, bends down to her height. “Hello,” he says, in horrible, horrible Japanese that Alice used to laugh at him for, “My name is Stacker.”

She looks at him, and he sees a familiar kind of… quickness in her eyes, an intelligence, and his heart hurts just a little less.

“Mako,” the girl says, taking his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked the story! Constructive criticism is welcome.


End file.
